New mobile phone scam that leaves you with a £300 bill for calls you never made

[dutchman]

Thousands of mobile customers are falling victim to a terrifying new scam that leaves them with a giant bill for a phone call they insist they never made.



Some victims are being hit with charges of more than £300 for mystery calls lasting up to 12 hours.

But they only find out about the calls when they get an itemised bill or receive a text message saying their phone is being blocked due to high usage.

In every case seen by Money Mail, involving Vodafone, EE and O2 customers, the scam begins with the customer receiving a call from an unfamiliar number that starts with 0845 or 0843.

The customer never answers — the call typically lasts just a fraction of a second — and it's recorded on their mobile handset as a missed call.

Weeks later, the bewildered victim receives a bill showing they called that number back — and owe a huge sum.

In almost all the cases we have seen, the return call supposedly made by the customer is shown to have lasted between three and 12 hours.

Yet the victims have no recollection at all of calling the number on their bill. Many say they didn't even see the missed call, let alone ring back. Others say they did notice a strange number pop up on their phone, but just ignored it.

Customers who ask their mobile supplier to waive the charges are being fobbed off and told to pay up.

All of the cases seen by Money Mail so far have involved phone giant Vodafone, which insists the problem is not its fault.

EE and O2 customers have also come forward to say they have been handed refunds, but the companies are yet to comment.

Communications watchdog Ofcom says customers of several mobile firms providers are being hit and has launched an investigation.

A spokesman said: 'We are very concerned to hear of a number of people receiving mobile charges they didn’t expect. Ofcom is working with the mobile operators, industry experts and partner regulators to establish the causes and address the problem.

'We are pleased that Vodafone is blocking suspicious numbers and refunding affected customers. We advise those who believe they are affected to contact their phone company promptly'.

The mobile giants admit their customers are victims of a clever scam — but seem to have little idea of how it works.

One theory is that hackers are gaining access to mobile users' accounts and making fraudulent calls in their names. Vodafone denies this suggestion.

When Money Mail called some of the numbers used in the scam, we got through to the answerphones of several different claims management firms touting flight delay compensation.

But the puzzle of how the fraudulent calls could have been made without customers noticing remains a mystery.